


A Visit

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daeron visits Lúthien while she is confined in the house in Hirilorn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Visit

Daeron took a deep breath as he pulled himself up onto the narrow wooden platform amid the branches of Hirilorn. Standing, he stared for a moment at the small wooden house before him, tucked between the great boughs of the tree. He wondered, not for the first time, what he thought he was trying to achieve. He could still go back down the ladder, tell the guards she had been sleeping, go back to Menegroth and avoid having to face the accusation in her eyes. It would be easy to do. But then nothing would have changed; the same unspoken thoughts would still be whirring and clamouring inside his mind, like trapped bees. He glanced down at the guards, far below at the base of the great beech tree. Five minutes, Thingol had said, and he suspected they would hold him to it. Not enough time. But then, he thought, perhaps there would never be enough time, not before the ending of the world, to speak the thoughts that had had his mind gnawing itself away from the inside these last few days. Pressing his lips together in determination, he knocked smartly on the door, the new timbers rough beneath his knuckles.

 

At first there was silence, and he strained his ears apprehensively. Then there came a soft sigh, and footsteps, and the door was opening, revealing Lúthien standing before him. He caught his breath. No matter how many times he saw her, he would never be quite prepared for how sharply beautiful she was. His memory, he realised, could never do her justice, a pale afterimage in comparison to the reality of her. Or maybe, he thought dully, it was his mind’s defense mechanism, a futile attempt to save himself a small measure of pain.

“Daeron.” Her face was stony, her silver-lined voice for once flat and toneless. “Why have you come?”

“I - ” suddenly all of the words he had so carefully prepared were vanishing, like smoke in the wind. He reached out towards the familiar presence of her mind, as wide and bright as the star-strewn sky before the sun and the moon. But it was closed to him now, he realised. She was hiding something, deliberately concealing those stars behind a wall of decisive black. At the same time, he realised his own mind was wide open, all his pain laid out for her to see.  _Good_ , he thought savagely.  _Maybe now you will know._

But she only stood looking at him, her eyes obstinately blank, waiting for him to speak. He felt an irrational stab of anger, and scrabbled for some words, any words, with which to mask it.

“Lúthien. I – I won’t stay long. Your father… he gave me five minutes to talk to you, but I think I’ve already used… I mean… you must be… how are you?” he finished lamely.

Her eyes strayed to the ground at the base of the tree, where the guards were clustered around the trailing end of the rope ladder he had climbed up. She frowned. “Well enough, I suppose. For a prisoner.”

“You know your father did this for your own safety.”

She gave a harsh, cutting laugh, like nothing he had heard in her voice before. “You truly believe that? Then you are a naïve fool, Daeron, or you have become one. He did it for one reason only, and that was to stop me from following Beren.”

His neck stiffened at the name, and he knew she had noticed. But he could bear it no longer.

“But why can’t you see that it is the  _same thing_!” He burst out. “I know you do not love me. I have known it for a long time, I think. But if you give yourself to that… that…  _mortal_ , you will die. I - ” he faltered. “I do not know how, but I know it.” There was a short pause. “Besides,” he added, “he will not return. The task your father gave him… I’m sorry, Lúthien, but it isn’t possible. It cannot be done.”

He studied her face, steeling himself for her anger. But a small, secret smile was spreading across her lips. “He will return” she said simply. “ _I_ know it.”

He sighed. “But Lúthien, how - ” he stopped. “The fact remains that even if he does return, even if he somehow obtains a Silmaril, he will age and die soon enough. And if you bind yourself to him…” his voice rose now, growing increasingly desperate “…then your heart will die with him.  _You_  will die, or you will fade, or - ” he found himself angrily blinking back bitter tears. “I’m not asking for your love, not for myself. I’m asking you to  _think_ , to think of those who love you. If not me, then your father, and your mother. Do you want to force them to watch you suffer until the end of Arda? Do you intend to make them watch you fade, knowing there is nothing, absolutely  _nothing_ , they can do to save you?” Again he felt the burning of tears in his eyes, and found himself cursing her, along with his own weakness.

She regarded him sceptically. “ _That’s_  why you did it? That’s why you told my father? You’re claiming there was no jealousy involved. I’m sorry Daeron. I don’t believe you.”

He shifted uncomfortably. Her ability to see through him had always unnerved him slightly. “I love you, Lúthien. Even if you don’t love me, even if you love another, even if you hate me. And I wanted to save you. Yes, I was jealous. How could I not be? But I only wanted to save you. If you believe nothing else, at least believe that.”

“Then I misunderstood you.” Her voice was taut and distant. She thought for a moment before continuing. “Daeron, I thought you believed in love, in some form of destiny, in two people who could not help but be together. I thought you of all people would understand. What about your songs, the ones you used to write? Beautiful stories about lovers overcoming the odds to be together. Remember when you believed that love could not be denied, that it overcame the fates of those it touched? When did you stop believing that love stories could have happy endings?”

He smiled bitterly. “When do you think?”

He remembered those days, of course he did. He remembered them with an exquisite clarity, the days when they had wandered through the forest together, a secret, starlit land just for them. He had sung, and she had danced, and their world had contained only each other and the music and the stars, complete and perfect as the most harmonious of chords. Or that was how it had seemed to him. He realised he had not even considered the possibility that she may have seen it differently, that the music may have an end. Suddenly her voice broke into his thoughts.

“You should go.” She smiled wryly. “You’re running out of time.”

 _No, you are_ , he wanted to say, but he did not quite trust himself to give voice to the thought. Instead he simply nodded wordlessly. Her face softened a little.

“I forgive you, you know Daeron.”

Again he felt anger twist inside him. Would it have been better if she had cursed him, or simply refused to speak to him? Probably, he thought.

“Lúthien - ”

“Hush.” She kissed him on the cheek, his skin burning where her lips brushed lightly against it. “Go back to Menegroth. Have peace, as far as you can. Don’t worry about me.”

Suddenly she smiled, a smile so bright and transcendent that it almost frightened him. He wondered what thoughts lay behind it. “Tell my mother and father that I fare well, and that I love them. Please, do this for me. All I ask is that you tell them that.”

“I – I will.” The words caught painfully in the back of his throat, as he realised how much power she had over him, even now.

“Goodbye Daeron.”

When he did not reply, she gave him a last, sad smile, and retreated back into the house, quietly shutting the door behind her. He stared blankly at the closed door, his mind churning.

“Goodbye Lúthien” he whispered to the unyielding wood panelling. “You will not see me again.”


End file.
